Unraveling
by Travithian Axile
Summary: He didn't want to be a failure. He couldn't bear to be a failure. And so he found an escape from the pain. Pregame, loads of Cloud angsting. Yellow pickup scene.


Disclaimer: I own nuffin' in this here story other than…nothing, actually.

A Word From the Author: Yet another one-shot, this one about Cloud and Zack. I'm on a Zack roll, as you'll see in my next one-shot.

Summary: He didn't want to be a failure. He couldn't bear to be a failure. So he became another man.

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**FINAL FANTASY VII:**

**UNRAVELLING**

Mind unraveling you don't have to be a failure don't want to be a failure you see just stop being one and let yourself go away let yourself die and take his mind _he's dead already who will care _just be him be him everybody liked him and now they'll like you too who will care who will know you don't have to a failure you don't have to be one.

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_You're a failure._

_You. You._

_Always a failure. You failed to save Nibelheim. You failed to enter SOLDIER. You failed with Tifa. Failure. Failure._

He screams, raw and hoarse and full of _pain_, and his hands scrabble frantically at the dirt as though to dig his own grave and bury himself. Strong hands grab his wrists and slowly he subsides, panting.

"It's all right," Zack says, his voice warm and soothing and familiar. "It's all right. Hojo can't hurt you anymore. You're safe with me."

Cloud nods, and he is grateful, but that isn't the problem. Unable to speak, he cries, great messy sobs bursting out of his throat and tears and snot running down his face. Zack's arms encircle him, and Cloud falls asleep at last as the SOLDIER's hand ruffles his blond spikes gently.

He dreams.

"…_Lennon, Jason. Matthews, Simon. Takar, Jax. Pirling, Yales…" drones the voice. _

_Cloud Strife is young and hopeful, and his nails dig into his skin with excitement, blue eyes following the successful candidates as they walk to the front. He wants this so badly, to prove himself, to show to everyone that he's not just a nobody. To show Tifa that he's worthy of her attention._

All these years of ridicule and bullying. I'll show them all, _he thinks, for the thousandth time. _I'll get into SOLDIER and be as good as General Sephiroth. They'll all beg for my forgiveness and apologize and see if I care.

"_Sarfire, Thomas."_

_The blond boy sitting next to Cloud gets up and smiles triumphantly, his fist pumping into the air as he goes onto the podium to receive his uniform and patch. Cloud tenses. This is his moment. He just knows it. This is the moment he has been waiting for, the moment which determines his life. He will live or die in this second, and he strains, listening, hopeful, dreading…_

"_Swanton, Kenneth."_

_The assembly erupts into applause again, but Cloud barely hears it. The crushing weight of his disappointment presses him down into his seat, and unbidden, the tears come. _Crybaby Cloud, _their jeers ring in his ears. _You'll always be a nobody. A nothing.

_Failure. Failure. _

Don't call me that.

Please.

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The sun is riding high in the sky, and Zack stretches himself comfortably—as comfortably as he can on a jouncing pickup— next to Cloud. He is out of it again, eyes glazing and head slumping. Zack sighs. "Poor kid," he says softly, but Cloud does not hear, wrapped up in his own agony and trauma, so lost in his own world that Zack's voice cannot penetrate the cacophony of voices stabbing his psyche. Zack shifts nearer to Cloud, and after a while, begins to talk. He knows that Cloud cannot hear him, but somehow the sound of his own voice alleviates his loneliness.

"Hi, Cloud. You don't really know a lot about me, do you? And us being friends for three years and all."

He pauses to look at Cloud, but the blonde is still mumbling to himself and drooling. Zack cocks his head. "What's that? You wanna know more? Sure, no prob."

Cloud is starting to slump, so Zack picks him up and puts him back into a sitting position so that they face each other. "I was born in Gonganga," Zack says. "I guess I've told you that before. I don't really like to think about it, though. My parents sucked. Well, not flat-out sucked. They cared about me. But they cared too much, y'know?"

He sighs. "They always wanted me to be the son they wanted. They wouldn't let me get my own life. So I left, joined the army. I met the General." For a moment a genuine smile crossed his lips before collapsing into ruin, bittersweet memories bringing a contemplative look onto his face. "He wasn't as bad as you might think," he confided. "People might think he's cold and creepy, but he was really hurting bad inside. So he just shut everybody else out. So he wouldn't get hurt again. And he'd kill me if he knew I was telling you all this. Not that it matters anymore, of course…" He lowers his head in pain. "The General I knew…trusted…he's gone now,"

"Not that I blame you, kid," he adds after a polite pause which Cloud does not fill. "I don't think he would have liked what he's now either. He was my friend," he says quietly. "I would have done the same myself for him." He squeezes his eyes shut and his lips tremble at some sad memory. "He was my friend," he repeats, and falls silent.

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They stop for the night. The gruff old truck driver shares with them his seemingly inexhaustible supply of ham and egg sandwiches ("Packed by me wife.") before they turn in. Zack listens to Cloud's steady breathing, sometimes broken by little mewling sobs, and wonders, with no small amount of worry, what is going on in his friend's head.

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"_Promise me…"_

"_Promise me whenever I get into a pinch…"_

"_You'll come save me…"_

I'm no SOLDIER, Tifa, _he thinks sadly, gazing at her , slumped in his arms, looking at him in that way he had, her dark eyes full of tears and gratitude, and he can only think, _What a fake I am. _Blood is pouring through the gash in her chest and he tries, clumsily, to staunch it, the blood staining his gloves crimson._ I can't save you, I can't save anybody…and here you are, dying in front of me, and I don't know what to do and I'm so bloody helpless damn it!

_Her eyes close, her long lashes, wet with tears, clinging to her cheeks. Terrified, he hugs her tighter, uncaring of the blood that turns his uniform damp and sticky. _Don't die on me, Tifa, _he cries. _Not before I have a chance to tell you what I feel for you.

But you already know, don't you?

_He weeps, then, long suppressed tears of pent-up longing surging from his eyes in a flood. He can do nothing for Tifa now, he understands, with cruel comprehension. The grief on his face hardens into hatred._ Sephiroth…

I trusted you!

_And he runs off, leaving Tifa, dead or dying, on the stairs, and he dies a million deaths after that, in a glass tube so dirt-streaked he can barely see through it, faced day by day by a little greasy bespectacled scientist, who tells him over and over,_

_"You're a failure. The Failure,"_

_and he screams and screams until his throat gives out, and still he says,_

_"You pathetic weakling. All you ever are, all you'll ever be, is a puppet."_

_Failure. You're a failure._

_Those endless nights wondering whether Tifa is still alive and whether she'll hate you, facing the eternal knowledge that you're forever and unchangingly a_

_Failure._

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"What did you want to be when you were growing up, Cloud?" Zack asks the next day, the sun in his eyes and the wind in his hair. Cloud looks at him, so handsome and perfect and strong—a First-Class SOLDIER—and tries not to despise him. Zack is his only friend—the only one who ever tries, and he can't hate him. It's not his fault that he's so much stronger, or that Cloud is so much weaker.

It's your own fault, you Failure.

Zack nods wisely. "Ah, yes, the army. I'm sorry that it had to turn out this way, kid." And he smiles, soft and gentle, and Cloud wants to cry for the tired sadness in that smile, but he can't for the lack of tears. He's shed too many tears these last five years, torn out of him by pain and humiliation and the constant reminder that he had failed, at everything he had done in his life. He'd failed at acceptance by the other children in Nibelheim. He'd failed at SOLDIER. Being the last one to be picked at soccer. Failing to save Tifa when the bridge collapsed. Failing to keep in control at that horrible place…Hojo's maniacal laughter rang incessantly in his ears. Telling him again and again that…

_"You don't even deserve a number," Hojo sneers, looming over Cloud and looking decidedly sinister with his huge black goggles and twisted smile. He looms very effectively, especially if the viewer in question is strapped down to a metal table and covered with his own blood. "The injection I've give you wouldn't make a chocobo scream! And yet here you are crying for your mommy. You're pathetic, boy."_

_"Pathetic. Next, please!" he calls out, shucking off his bloody gloves and fitting on new ones. Cloud squirms helplessly on the table, his guts roiling—literally—as assistants haul him upright. Tears stung his eyes. "Wait!" he chokes out. "Please…I don't wanna be a failure…let me…"_

_Hojo stares, incredulous, before he laughs again. "You'll always be the Failure, boy," he half-whispers, " and nothing you'll ever do will change that. You'll just be a handy vessel for my experiments and nothing more, you little brat…" His lip curls further. "Anymore today," he says, "and you'll die, just like the good-for-nothing weakling you are."_

_"I'm not weak!" he screams, or tries to, past the blood bubbling up in his throat. "I'm not weak! Not not not not—"_

_With brutal efficiency the assistant shoves his intestines in his stomach and his words are lost in a gurgling whimper. His lip is bleeding where he has bitten it, and stings as the tears fall, one by one and wholly unwanted. He cries, and he has never felt so helpless, or vulnerable, in his life, or like such a_

_FAILURE_

_that even Hojo doesn't want him around._

_You'll always be a failure, boy,_

_Always._

……………………………………………………………………………………………...

Zack is talking again, and Cloud tries to focus on him, past all the ghosts in his past. When Zack is talking the pain is not so bad, mostly because he is reminded of the other man's presence. Zack's gone through the same experience, and he knows, and his sympathy shines through in everything he says, and the constant worried glances.

It's nice to have someone worried for him. Not that it's good to have a cause to worry for, but still…

"What'll we do back at Midgar, Cloud?' he's saying, in that lazy-conversational way of his. "We'll need to get a job, earn some money and go to ground. Hey, what could we do, old man?" he yells at the driver.

"What kinda question is that, young man?" he yells right back, his voice impressively going right over the growl of the engine and bouncing the sturdy yellow truck at sixty miles per hour. "You're still young, you can do anything! Why talk about settling down and doing business when there's plenty of crap outside for you to do?"

Zack happily ignores this. "Hey, I know! We could set up a business that does everything!" he proclaims. "Together, me and you, Cloud. We'll be mercenaries!" He cuffs Cloud gently on the shoulder. "I'll never leave you alone, Cloudy, you now that don't you?" Pleased with this idea, he sits down again and Cloud feels a smile creeping to his lips. That's Zack. Happily, exuberantly in love with life, no matter what.

"It'll end well, little Chocobo. I promise. Shiva knows you deserve it, more than I do. You've had some tough times, but it's all gonna change," Zack says, looking into Cloud's eyes, smiling reassuringly. "It'll—"

Something shifts in his expression, and suddenly, he has thrown his bulk over Cloud—and it jerks as an agonized scream rips free from Zack's lungs. "Run, you fool!" Zack is screaming hoarsely, and suddenly they're on the ground and the sound of screeching brakes and Zack's heavy panting is strong in Cloud's ears. Zack's arm grips him about the middle, strong and steadying as ever, but his breath is hitching horrifyingly and there is blood on his uniform and Cloud's hands. Cloud wants to scream but he cannot; the air is crushed out of him by Zack's firm hold. The Buster Sword scores the ground deeply as Zack backs away, swinging it again and again, and little metal objects make little tinkling sounds as they strike the metal of the blade and bounce harmlessly off. Then he is lowered to the ground, and Zack, shrieking incomprehensively, has charged straight ahead, fast and strong like a demon, his huge sword felling soldiers that have suddenly popped up nowhere, like, like—a crazed man, a man fighting for his freedom. Cloud can only watch helplessly, mouth open in a soundless cry, his body refusing to obey his commands.

_Run! _He wants to say. _Please, Zack, run away—not for me, oh, Ifrit's flaming hells, not for me—_

_­_And Zack falls, blood spurting from his mouth—defeated at last, and Cloud can see, close-up, the expression in his eyes, just a little bit surprised and another emotion, one of stark frustration, and Cloud turns his head with difficulty to see, just below the cliff, Midgar holy shit Midgar, a metal and smog pizza rising from the ground—Zack's home, so near and yet so far, and a nameless feeling rises from his chest. He finds his voice at last, and screams and keeps screaming, spewing out his horror into the skies.

"Shall we kill him too, sir?' a trooper asks, stepping close to his commander. The man shakes his head in disdain, staring at the whining, gagging thing that had once been Cloud Strife, spending his misery and pain in a jagged, stretched out scream that cuts the mind like broken glass. "The way I see it, the man's half-mad and half-dead already," the commander says, impersonally, but he doesn't like this business anymore than his men do, one whole platoon against a brave man trying to protect his friend. He gives the order to depart, and they do, leaving the corpse of Zack Donovan sprawled on the bloody ground and his dead eyes staring at Midgar, and Cloud Strife howling and weeping like a violent ghost.

And his scrabbling hands find the hilt of the Buster Sword, still clutched firmly in Zack's cooling hands, and he pulls. The sword resists at first, then slides out, blood-slick and heavy in Cloud's hands. He stares at it for a moment.

_You failure you utter failure you shoddy excuse for a friend—_

"What could I have done?" he wails. It's all coming back, the feeling in his legs, like thousands of needle-pricks, and his voice, raw and rough from lack of use but there, and it sounds and feels like sand paper rubbing itself against the soft flesh of his throat.

_You couldn't have done anything. Because you're a failure you couldn't protect yourself he had to die protecting you_

_Zack Zack oh _god _I'm so sorry…_

_You couldn't protect yourself_

_He died for you._

_All your fault yours yours he's dead it's your fault you're a failure and everything you do ends up wrong_

_FAILURE_

And Cloud Strife's mind shatters, as surely as a wine-glass has been dropped to the floor or a throat has been slashed. He moans and laughs alternately, and clings to Zack's sword with a white-knuckled grip like a lifeline. Singing snatches from Nibelheim folk dances he finally submits to exhausted slumber.

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_You don't have to be a failure._

_I don't? _He's grasping at faint hope now, so tired and full of self-hatred that he'll do anything to escape this self-imposed hell. "What can I do?" he asks, surprisingly lucid. He doesn't want to be sane, though. Being sane means taking responsibility for his actions, and Cloud can't face that right now.

_You can escape, _his mind says (and somewhere Cloud is dimly aware that he is talking to himself, and it makes sense and it doesn't. But then it gets too complicated and he gets a headache, so he stops thinking.)

_Be him._

_You've always admired him haven't you? Everyone likes him. Everyone will like you too. You'll be brave and handsome and strong, just like him_

_And you don't have to be a failure anymore._

"Strong," he says, closing his eyes. "I don't wanna be weak anymore…"

And he wakes up.

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It is drizzling, when Cloud Strife opens his eyes, to find that he is lying on a cliff. How did he get here? He frowns as he tries to pry information out of a mind unwilling to listens. He gives up and scans the surroundings as he has been taught (where? When?) and finds much of interest. A battle has been fought here, recently, it seems. The rain has not yet washed it away. And there are corpses, many corpses, but one in particular catches his attention. He is tall and spiky-haired and his empty hands are clenched, as though he had been holding a sword in the last moments of life…strange, it is missing. Musing, Cloud sheathes the Buster Sword in a move that comes easily to him.

Who…am I?

This mental query reverberates in his brain, accompanied by pinpricks of white-hot pain. Cloud Strife, age twenty-one, First-Class SOLDIER, _former _SOLDIER, he corrects himself without knowing where the information comes from, birthplace Nibelheim, blood type AB. But it doesn't answer the real meaning behind the question: what have I done? What am I like? _Who _am I?

He looks down at the gleaming lights of the city below him, and is struck, without knowing why, to go there. Perhaps because it was raining and the lights look warm and inviting. Or perhaps it is because he hopes that the answers he seek will be found there.

He takes one step forward, then another, and walks away.

In time, the rain will remove the bloodstains from the ground, and nature will reclaim its own, leaving perhaps some rusty armor here and there.

In time, it will be as if nothing had ever happened at all.

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Author's Ending Note: Whew, I've got a headache from typing this out for three solid hours. My brain's exhausted from churning out all the angst and this weird rambly style, where the laws of English are proudly defied by my long, unbroken sentences and the shameless abuse of 'and', conjunctions and hyphens. What can I say. It's fun. But sad too. I'm sad whenever I think about Zack's death. Ah, 'nuff angst for one day.

I hope that reading this fic will make some kind of difference, that you won't just read it and forget about it; I hope that it'll give you more insight into Cloud's twisted mind. Yeah. Reviews will be appreciated. Praise me, flame me, whatever you want—just remember to be polite and use proper grammar.

See ya soon—I'll have my own Christmas offering coming up on said day, look out for it!

T, Axile.

Started 20/12/05

Completed 20/12/05

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